Setting the Stage

>>After playing in baseball games as a high school student, Scott Saxon used to leave the diamond and head for the auditorium, where he would be an usher for school musicals. Today a Pittsburgh Steelers calendar sits on his desk at the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall, and he bemoans the fact his beloved team didn't repeat as Super Bowl champions.

But once he starts talking about bringing new and diverse programming to Southwest Florida's largest performance hall, his past and present sports interests fade and Saxon, 36, becomes so enthusiastic that he shifts in his chair and straightens his brightly-colored tie, punctuating his animated speech.

"This business is like holding a live wire," he says. "Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad-mainly it's good-but really it's the excitement that I love."

He took the position as general manager of Mann Hall in September after spending 12 years in management posts at theaters in upstate New York. While serving just one year as the executive director of The Palace Theatre in Albany, N.Y., the venue saw increases in ticket sales of 35 percent, number of performances of 30 percent, and rental income of 66 percent.

Such success came as no surprise to those at Professional Facilities Management, a Rhode Island-based company that has been operating Mann Hall since 1991 and is contracted to continue to do so until 2010. The firm recommended Saxon for the job in Albany, only to hire him away to Southwest Florida one year later. It manages the day-to-day business of the venue, but Edison College owns the building. According to Saxon, the annual administrative budget is about $1.4 million.

Although the profit margins in the theater business are relatively low, he says ticket sales have increased in the past three to four years.